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The title "Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden" kinda suggests that the top move just isn't available to the player.
by okamiueru 4y ago
The title "Human Chess is a chess variant where playing the top engine move is forbidden" kinda suggests that the top move just isn't available to the player.
However, the thought you had, and similar ones, are very much the intentional side-effect of the rules. The only way to win the game, as stated, is forcing your opponent to make the top engine move. Or, of course, correctly claim that your opponent made such a move (even though it wasn't forced). Or, having your opponent make the incorrect claim about your move.
So, it isn't necessarily "playing good chess". Though, I must say, I'm not qualified to have any good idea of what it would mean to be good at this game. It definitely helps to be good at chess, and have a good command of what are the correct engine moves. Especially since you lose if you incorrectly claim a position and opponent move was "the top engine line".
I suppose most would reduce this to leaving the opponent to only one legal move. In which case, the problem is is trivial. But, after move 2? You need to know most opening lines, and probably play intentionally bad in many situations.
Hm, this is cooler the more I think about it.
Imagine intentionally setting up material sacrifice with a resulting choice of multiple moves for the opponent to capitalize. If you can correctly evaluate the best computer move, you have a strong advantage. If it is not obvious, then the opponent might not dare to gamble the challenge.
Has Hikaru tried this in one of his streams? I'm certain he would have a blast.
The only thing about this that doesn't "spark joy" are the ambiguous practical implementations.
- Which engine? This matters a lot.
- How do you define the computational cut-off? CPU-minutes? Move depth? Etc. Not necessarily a simple problem.
- The rule "When multiple moves have the top score, they are all top moves". Needs a specific score evaluation delta for grouping "top moves".
All of these could rather simply be resolved if it isn't very important... might even add some uncertainty to it, for fun. Like, say: 1. Stockfish 15. 2. Allow the computer whatever resources it has available, 1 minute, and play some drum roll sample. 3. Pawn-evlauation of 0.05.
- MereInterest 4y agoI'd also be interested in a variant where the engine-recommended move is displayed to the players. It would take out the uncertainty of whether a move is illegal, but would allow for different win conditions (e.g. approach checkmate without ever using an optimal move).
- majikandy 4y agoThis is what I thought it would be from the title. Top players say that they don’t necessarily see a top engine move but can immediately identify one when it is played on them.
- Retric 4y agoIt’s an exaggeration but with some truth to it. Outside of openings and end games the top move for a chess engine is often different from the top move for a player. That said, grandmasters do of course often play the top engine move. Human players are dealing with both human limitations and human limitations which really changes the game. So a grandmaster can for example benefit from playing a slightly weaker but less well known opening that they have recently studied in depth with the assumption that their opponent hasn’t done the same.
- HelloNurse 4y agoNot wasting time with claims would be another very practical advantage. A further variant for fairness purposes: let each player bring their preferred chess engine, instead of arguing about the choice of only one; and have each player run both engines for mutual anti-cheating verification. Then either the two engines agree on the best move (likely case if they are both strong) or all moves that either engine considers better than the other engine's best move (at least 2, usually not too many) can be interdicted.
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- bee_rider 4y agoI wonder — at the top end the chess engines clearly compete with each other and produce different results, that’s how one can be said to be better than the other, right? But against us puny humans, especially novices, do they produce very different outputs? Or is it just like, the moves to crush a silly meat-brain are just super obvious, no need for creativity. Especially in this game, the humans will be trying to play badly.
- squeaky-clean 4y agoSome games from the most recent chess engine tournament look whacky as hell. Like if you showed the games to a grandmaster they would probably estimate it was 2 completely new 400 elo players.
- zmgsabst 4y agoI think some of the moves the engine suggests in human games look whacky to human grandmasters. Hikaru Nakamura is a top GM that does commentary streams — and frequently comments things like “but what do I know about chess?” when responding to AI suggestions. It’ll suggest a weird move that seems to leave a mess on the board while insisting that everything is great. And obviously if you actually tried to play against Stockfish from that position, it would crush you. Looks like 400 ELO, but hey — what do we know about chess?
- squeaky-clean 4y agoOne of the big issues with engines is that they don't assume they're playing against human players. Of course in an engine v engine tournament they're not. But it makes it hard to use them to study things, especially below elo 2000. Many times the chess.com "best move" seems utterly ridiculous, and when I click for it to follow through on the suggested move line, it shows the opponent making a response no human would ever ever make. I think we need to have some sort of division between "this engine will win any game ever" and "this engine will always win against a human." There's been times when the chess.com calls my move a mistake, and suggests something nonsense that leads to a guaranteed mate in 15, when I got a (non-guaranteed but real) mate in 5 from my move, because I know I'm playing against a human. The engine move is more guaranteed, but very illogical unless your brain can do the equivalent of the 30 turns of minmax.
- AstralStorm 4y agoActually no, the top choice would be to force your opponent into a position where the series of second best moves literally destroys them. You're looking for traps where only a particular move can save you. A minimally modified engine lookup wins here. There's a whole bunch of openings that ensure it for white, this game is rigged even more than playing the best move, even if you do enforce a random opening.